Economics textbooks invariably describe the important economic choices that all societies must make by the following three questions: What goods are to be produced? How are these goods to be produced? Who is to get what is produced? This way of stating social choice problems is misleading. Economic organizations necessarily do resolve these issues in one fashion or another, but even the most centralized societies do not and cannot specify the answer to these questions in advance and in detail. It is more useful and nearer to the truth to view a social system as relying on techniques, rules, or customs to resolve conflicts that arise in the use of scarce resources rather than imagining that societies specify the particular uses to which resources will be put.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022050700076403

The Property Right Paradigm

AS CRITICISM of the traditional theory of production and exchange has mounted in the postwar period, increasing attention has been given to new analytical approaches that seek either to supplant classical marginalism or to extend its scope. In the latter category is the important body of literature that has grown up around the notion of property rights structures. The contributions here are quite diverse in style and content but are characterized by a common emphasis on certain basic ideas concerning the interconnectedness of ownership rights, incentives, and economic behavior. The purpose of the present paper is to summarize the essential features of this line of research, examine some of its important areas of application, and discuss the promise the approach holds for improved understanding of economic problems.

Property Rights and Economic Theory: A Survey of Recent Literature

The report of the National Commission on Product Safety stated that the American public is being exposed to many unreasonably hazardous products. Further, the post-accident remedies to compensate victims of product-related accidents are inadequate and encourage the continued production of unsafe products. It is believed that a shift in assignment of liability for accident costs from consumers to sellers would discourage sales of the more hazardous product grades thereby reducing the frequency and severity of home accidents. This conclusion cannot be derived from economic theory. Indeed, under fairly plausible conditions, a shift to producer liability can lead to the increased production of riskier product grades. The theory developed in this paper argues that the demand for a risky product is determined by the full price consisting of the price of the parent risky good plus the imputed expected damage costs. The consumer maximizes utility by demanding that product grade which minimizes his full price. In the concluding section of the paper, attention is directed to the welfare implications of the policy alternatives for the product safety problem.

The Economics of Product Safety

Among the benefits of highway investment to which reference is often made are those presumed to accrue to property owners More specifically, many studies have shown that land values tend to increase in the vicinity of newly improved highways Since these increases are independent of the extent to which the affected property owners use the highway facilities involved, such gains are normally labeled non-user benefits and are generally regarded as benefits that must be added to those arising directly from highway use if total highway benefits are to be accurately estimated Although widely accepted by highway planners, this conclusion is thought to be inaccurate by this author The main goal of this paper is to demonstrate this assertion by exploring the relationship between land values and transportation costs and reductions The effects of certain types of transportation improvements on the pattern of land values and the distribution of income in a hypothetical community is demonstrated

Land values and the measurement of highway benefits. in: transport infrastructure

Resource-based theory implicitly assumes that property rights to resources are secure. Extant property rights theory enables us to relax this assumption to take into account processes where there are struggles in establishing property rights that enhance the realized economic value of resources. A case study of oil field unitization (where a single firm is designated as unit operator to develop the oil reservoir as a whole) is analyzed to illustrate the following points: a full resource-based analysis of value creation must incorporate the role of property rights to internalize externalities and to solve prisoners' dilemma problems of common-pool resources. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Resource‐based and property rights perspectives on value creation: the case of oil field unitization

Introduction, 611.--I. Developments concerning products liability, 612.--II. Implications of alternative assignments of liability, 616.

Products Liability: Implications of Some Changing Property Rights

An Outsider Looks at Urban Economics

Some informal rules merely save decision-making costs in social exchanges, but we try to use others as social contracts to produce public goods. (In fact, effective ethical-behavioural constraints may be essential to retention and the useful functioning of markets and democratic government.) Ethical-behavioural tenets are themselves public goods, however, adherence to them being vulnerable to cheap- or free-rider difficulties. In the long run, therefore, desirable informal laws will be underprovided. Nonetheless, according to both theory and observation, individuals sometimes overturn their free-riderism, compulsively sacrifice their selfish interests, and maintain useful customs and rules. Conditions that determine the costs and ‘indoctrinated’ or psychic rewards to individuals for their adherence are discussed. These conditions will shape the degree of underproduction of advantageous behavioural codes.

Some economic aspects of ethical‐behavioural codes*

A. New decisions, given tastes, possible spillovers, 638. — B. New decisions, new tastes, possible spillovers, 640.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/1882032

Roland N. McKean

Papers

Products Liability: Implications of Some Changing Property Rights

An Outsider Looks at Urban Economics

Some economic aspects of ethical‐behavioural codes*

Spillovers from the Rising Value of Time